Living the Dream 4

The challenge of today has been about living distinct lives at the heart of pagan societies.  David Tripp (Wellington doctor & TSCF grad) spoke of the small choices we make each day working their way into our lives and producing fruit into the long term. 

Daniel chose to eat veggies rather than being ‘defiled’ through taking the food and wine from the king’s table.  He obeyed God’s law in doing so BUT he did more than the law required.  He chose to remind himself in the patterns of his day that he did not belong in Babylon but was a citizen of another city: that his true King was God.

How do we, how can we, build distinctive patterns in our lives that will remind us of our allegiance to a Better City (Heb 11)?

The chat in seminars and around tables has been quality – working out being distinctive whilst living for Jesus.

Nigel Pollock (TSCF National Director) spoke this evening from Daniel 3 about the inevitability of persecution if we are living godly lives in the midst of a world which does not choose or treasure the Sovereign reign of God.

Daniel’s 3 friends are in the firing line because they will not defile themselves by bowing down to a statue of the king. They’d made a choice not to eat his food and now they will not bow down to his image in worship.  The smaller choice makes this life and death choice easier – but it is essentially the same choice.  They will not deny that God who has brought the people of Israel into relationship with himself.  They will not turn away from Him to make their own lives easier.

The precise nature of idolatry works itself out differently around the world. In each of our cultures and contexts idolatry is seen in different ‘clothes’. It may not be a 90 foot statue like for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego but it will be a particular expression of our culture’s values, aspirations and allegiances: it might not be ‘visible’ but it will present a clear and real danger to our allegiance to the one true God who has made Himself known in Jesus Christ.

The balance of power, in human terms, is entirely against the friends.  They have nothing other than their integrity and faith in God. Nebuchadnezzar has everything in his power to hurt them.  The friends recognise this as they speak to Him: they declare that they will be faithful to God regardless of the outcome for them.  Doing the right thing does not necessarily lead to an easy time – the people of God can testify to this all over the world.  God is just and his justice will prevail but there are no guarantees of an easy solution for the faithful.

All too often we are not willing to endure hardship, persecution and difficulties.  We show it in asking what’s going wrong when things are hard. Are there any parameters, any extremities, that would put limits on your discipleship?  Are there any situations which would be too far for you?

Persecution is inevitable – if we refuse to bow the knee to the idols of this age. It might be in social slights, in employment disadvantage or in physical attack or imprisonment. It can seem unreal form the comfort and relative security of New Zealand but the reality is working itself out for Christians around the world right now.

The reality for Daniel’s friends was ferocious persecution and a firey pit! Miraculous intervention ensues and the place of destruction becomes the place of liberty. The friends are preserved and actually fellowship together and with the ‘fourth man’ in the flames.  It is true that we are brought closer to God in trials but it is no less true in this situation that trials brings God’s closer to us – He enters into their situation.

The church globally is facing persecution and trials. Are we ready?

Living the Dream 3 – studying to the Glory of God

Mark Grace began the teaching from Daniel opening the book to us from chapter 1.

In 1995 Mark, soon after starting studying, was travelling north from Auckland.  His girlfriend grabbed his arm and told him to pray! Immediately after praying a car smashed into the car – a drunk driver had lost what control he’d had of the car he was driving.  This incident led to Mark beginning to understand the importance and the place of study.

In Daniel 1 we see Daniel and his friends swept up in the historical events surrounding the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar’s, destruction of Jerusalem and the theft of the best and the brightest of Judah.  Religious and cultural reshaping takes place – even their names are changed.  The stakes are hugely high – the king’s pleasure meant life or death.

Today’s student world is also shaped by external forces – economic and political pressures have influenced both the choice of place of study and the focus of study.  There are high stakes involved today too – more graduates than graduate employment placements; more debt for less return.

God is sovereign – despite the external circumstances, in the face of our personal choices God still rules. God’s sovereignty does not remove difficulties or tensions in our lives.  Daniel and his friends lived as little more than displaced hostages; ripped from their homes, homeland and families. 

Will you study with the same convictions as Daniel and his friends? Will you live under God’s sovereignty regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in?

3 approaches:

Study and Faith – compartmentalised. The student does not think of their studies and their faith together at all. They are completely different and unrelated disciplines.

Study and Faith – conflict. The student believes that everything in the context of their study is alien to and hostile to their faith. They bunker down and starts fighting and retreating.

Study and Faith – integrated. The student believes that everything in their faith says that everything in their study has everything to do with God.

For Daniel and his friends they saw that their studies, even their diets, were subject to the sovereignty of God – even in a situation where God’s sovereignty might easily be questioned.  They determine in their hearts NOT to be turned aside/defiled by their studies in as much where their studies impinge on their faith.

They are willing to take the consequences of their principled, faith filled, stance – though they are convinced that their convictions will not disadvantage them.

How does this work out today? It shows itself in courageous convictions and godly character, as well as conscientious study. Applying the mind that you have to the application of a Godly perspective on your area of study: not allowing faith to be an excuse for laziness and bad marks.

God gives Daniel and his friends the ability to do the work that he has set before them:

1:17  To these four young men God gave knowledge and skill in every aspect of literature and wisdom; Daniel also had insight into all visions and dreams.

Too often today we separate what God gives between secular (knowledge, skills in literature, practical wisdom) and sacred (understanding in dreams and visions). YET this is NOT what we see in Daniel 1.17 – we see that God gives them all: they ALL belong to HIM!

The whole of your study (or area of work) – the WHOLE of it – belongs to God, it is for His glory.  Jesus is the the one in whom and through whom it all hangs together.  His Word is as relevant to quantum physics and town planning, to art and architecture, as it is to sexual ethics and evangelistic endeavours.

Daniel and his friends are empowered in study to become competent and credible in their sphere of influence.

Studying for the glory of God is seeing that God is sovereign: He has placed you were you are, gifted you as you are for the sake of His glory both now and into your future through your faith in the Lord Jesus.

Living the Dream 2 – Student in a Reasonably Priced Car

Inspired by Top Gear, and as a means of introducing some fun at the beginning of the main sessions, two students will battle it out on a PS2 racing game as we start our gatherings. A leader board develop through the week and a ‘grand’ prize will  be unveiled at the end of the conference.

But is this gospel hearted?  Isn’t it just a distraction? Shouldn’t we be using our time in a more ‘sober minded’ way?

There is nothing sinful in sharing fun – there is nothing distracting about enjoying each other’s company.  The whole of our lives are open to gospel input – how we have fun and how we study Scripture is all under the scrutiny of the gospel.  At TSCF conferences we’re serious about having fun – we programme it in, we preserve space for it and we enjoy doing so - and we see it as part of our love of God and response to Jesus as Lord.

Living the Dream 1 – Liveblog from TSCF mid-year conference 2009

OK, so having found out that there is no internet at the conference centre it may be a short while before this ‘live’ blog hits the actual blog – but I’ll write along ‘as though live blogging’

How will you live? What is your dream? Are our dreams framed by what God has made known of Himself in Jesus?  Are our aspirations and desires formed by our hope in Jesus?

Val Goold led the first session of the conference presenting the challenge of God’s perspective as the touchstone which transforms our perspective on life.  The book of Daniel will be the framework within which we will be challenged, where we will hear God speak and reflect on what we are to learn from the people we encounter in Daniel’s narrative.

Though, at a surface level, we may look just like those around us how do we live out the things which set us apart?  How do we live in a way that does not just conform to the world around us?  How do we live in a way which points to the hope we have: the dream we are living?

That’s the reason for this week – to take time to reflect, to pray, to learn about what it is to live out our faith and hope in Jesus in a way that is distinct in today’s world.  We look to the past, to the stories that God has recorded in His Word about Daniel, his friends and enemies, in order to know how to live today and toward the future.

I’m under STRICT orders from my Occupation Therapist, Karen, to be very sensible while I’m here at conference.  This will be a real test of how deep my recovery has been thus far.  I’m back at 25 hours work per week but as meeting/chatting around meal tables is probably the thing which will zap my energy most that’s 2.5 hours per day already taken out of the work time I have to give.  I’m leading a seminar for guys on Tue & Thu, a quiz on Tue night and the final reflection on what we’ve learned at conference.

Please do be praying that I will go well during this week and that for all of us here the challenges of God’s Word will get into our hearts and minds and bear the fruit of transformation in our lives.

the silence of the womb

Today in the New Zealand Herald headline proclaimed “Abortion Numbers Drop” I checked out the short article and my heart sank.  Here are the raw numbers.

In 2008 17,940 abortions were conducted. 440 abortions less than 2007.

The majority of abortions were for women between 20-24.

37% were repeat abortions.

I’m not naive – I know the arguments for choice, the possibility of facing the horror of pregnancy after rape, the distress of parents facing a long period of looking after disabled children, the pressure of bringing children into poverty and the complexities that attend a whole range of the moral choices that people make.  I know that there are many women who choose abortion and do so with heavy hearts and a great deal of distress.  I know it’s hard.  And yes, I know that I’m a man and that for many that removes the validity of my perspective – yet another patriarchal voice suppressing the choice and voice of women? I hope not.
It is inescapable though that each abortion is clinically, discretely and completely murder.  However the ethics are presented the lives of just shy of 18,000 children were ended through medical intervention last year.  Without medical and surgical intervention the overwhelming majority of those children would have been carried to full term and not be ‘potential’ lives but living children right now.
NZ has an appalling record of domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse of children and shocking numbers of children living in poverty.  We are rightly shocked when reports of men and women in callousness, or in the extremities of stress, act out their dysfunction on the children in their care. We are grieved when we hear of physical and sexual abuse.  We are moved when we are presented with the realities of the impact of poverty on children in our communities.
Here in these figures, in this quiet and unassuming report in today’s NZ Herald, we are presented with the banality of an unrecognised tsunami of grief and loss.  Many of these abortions are performed on the children of university aged women: I daresay a closer examination of the figures would show that the educated and the privileged are well represented in those numbers.  This is very much a live issue in student ministry – not simply as an ethical debate - but as an area of acute need; mercy and forgiveness are required in equal measure.
There is cause to rejoice in the lesser of two evils – it IS great that the number of abortions fell in 2008; but the great shame of the loss of 18,000 lives is passed over too easily.
Oh God, have mercy on this land.

update news story: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10578905

What have you been up to?

Val Goold asked this question of the TSCF Ministry Interns at the second MINTY training conference.  The session was about ‘understanding the gospel’.  It was a brilliant and incisive question because she’d already asked them to write down a short summary of the good news about Jesus.

It was brilliant because she asked them to make the connection between what they do in everyday life to the gospel outline they had just scribbled down.  It was brilliant because she helped them see that for many of our friends who aren’t Christians (and many who are) this is a major leap: Jesus and ordinary life are a million miles from each other.

If the news about Jesus is to be truly good news then it must fully address the whole of life, precisely because Jesus is the LORD of all Life and there is not once centimetre (nor one quark) over which Jesus does not claim ownership.

This is one of the reasons I love working with and for TSCF: we are really serious about applying the Lordship of Jesus into every area of life. It is challenging, it really is, but it excites my heart and sees lives (including my own) transformed.

I’m here at the conference and it’s the first conference I’ve been at since last May.  I’m not in charge and I’m only doing one teaching session, ‘studying to the glory of God’, as I’m still on reduced hours (22 hours this week!) but I’m here catering for the 10-12 people who are here through the week. I’m enjoying it immensely: mostly because I’m getting to serve, getting to be useful, getting to enjoy the company of colleagues and MInters and getting to think about how Jesus is Lord, even when I’m cooking chilli-con-carne with sweet corn cous cous for dinner rather than teaching the Bible.  What have you been up to?